My life entered into a blissful one month agent-free period, during which the idea of deranged FBI employees and changelings took on the quality of a dream. A really bad dream, but a dream nonetheless. My perfectly human thankyouverymuch family went back to our normal life.

Which is why I naively opened the door on the first knock, incorrectly assuming that it was the Fedex guy delivering the books I'd ordered online. Imagine my dismay. "Oh God, it's you again. What now?" I asked, already admitting defeat as I opened the door wider to let them in.

Chase seemed to remember them, because he growled softly from under the safety of a kitchen chair. I knew exactly how he felt.

Though not wearing all black this time, they didn't go any better with my furniture. "Did you find new evidence of Markie being a changeling, or of my being an elf?"

Agent Scully shot agent Mulder a scathing look. Interesting. I wondered if he'd discussed his elf theory with her before telling me about it.

"No." Agent Mulder said meekly. He'd definitely been chewed out.

"What is it then? Are you concerned that Poland Springs water is not, in fact, what it means to be from Maine? Worried that America's Stonehenge has no connection to the one in the UK?" I'll admit it, I was enjoying being btchy. You can't tell me they didn't deserve it.

They didn't even seem phased by the abuse. Made me wonder how many other people they annoyed into similar outbursts. It wouldn't surprise me if it had been many.

To my surprise, it was not agent Mulder who spouted a new wacky theory. "Ms. Phile, the last time we were hear, I couldn't help but notice the scar on your right hand. Do you mind me asking how long you've had it?" Agent Scully asked carefully.

The fact was that I did mind, but since she was being polite... I turned over my right hand, and looked at it. Right below the thumb, on that fleshy part of the hand, there is a somewhat impressive scar. Slightly over an inch long, a lightening bolt shape is surrounded by seven circles- four on the left side, three on the other. I have no idea why there's not a fourth scar on the right side as well, since the needle putting in the stitch had gone through there too. "Since a couple of weeks before my thirteen birthday." I told her.

Instead of asking the next logical question, 'how did you get it' – which was a bit of clumsiness on my part while not being careful enough with a box cutter- Mulder asked,

"Have you ever experienced any missing time?"

I blinked in confusion. "Missing how?"

"Time you can't account for. When you should have memories but don't." Agent Mulder clarified. Or at least attempted to, since I still didn't know what they were getting at.

"No, I've never had any memory loss." I'd never been a heavy drinker- or even a light one- and only had the one personality, such as it was, so why would I?

"Do you get headaches?" Scully asked, looking oddly concerned.

"Sometimes." Especially when talking to them. But I was nice and didn't say that.

"Chronic sinus problems?"

"I have hayfever, but it's not too bad. When I was younger I got sinus infections every year, but I haven't had one since I got out of college."

"Do you have any vague memories of a medical nature you can't account for?" Mulder asked.

"Well, no. The only time I ever was operated on was to remove my front teeth when I was two. They came in with no enamel, and the doctors worried that they would become septic if they weren't removed. I have a vague memory of an operating table and a bright shinning light. I mean, it has to be a memory of that, or else I was kidnapped by aliens." I joked.

The expressions on their faces suggested that they didn't find my joke funny. In fact they were looking at me like there was a distinct impression that the idea had already occurred to them. "You don't honestly think I've been adducted by aliens, do you?"

"Have you ever woken up at night and not been able to move?" Mulder droned on, apparently not intent on answering my question.

"No. Beyond an arm that's gone to sleep from sleeping on it, I've never woken up unable move every part of my body."

"Do you ever have flashes of an object you don't think you're really seen? Faces with almond eyes, needles, an examine table, malformed babies, things like that."

"No, but occasionally I imagine someone trying to kill themselves with a bagel slicer or a paper cutter." I told them, wondering what they'd make of it. I really don't like those unbidden images. Scully raised her eyebrow, but Mulder's expression didn't change. But, as I'd seen it, he didn't have many.

"Have you ever woken up and found there were strangers in your room that were not quite...human?" Mulder asked.

"No. Well, yes, there was that one time, but it wasn't real. I found out I'm allergic to the sleeping pill Ambien, and it makes me hallucinate as well as throw up a lot. There was a 5 foot wide spider and a giant hand too, so I'm sure it wasn't aliens. "

"Do you ever hear a strange sourceless humming?"

"I can hear the whine that all computers and TVs make, but I've got good high pitch hearing. I hear dog whistles too."

"Mulder, enough with the questions." Agent Scully said abruptly. I could have hugged her. But then she grabbed her hair in one fist and pointed to the back of her neck. " Do you see that scar? That's where someone-"

"Aliens." Mulder corrected.

She ignored him. "Where someone put an implant in my neck. I believe the implant is what caused my cancer."

"You have cancer?" I blurted out. There's a long history of cancer in my family, so it made me more than normally sympathetic towards those with the disease.

"No, not any more. However, everyone else I know with those implants died of it because it was discovered too late. I'd hate to see that happen to someone else."

"But I don't have a scar on my neck." I lied.

Before I could blink, agent Mulder had tugged down the collar of my shirt an inch or so. I was furious. " You don't, do you?"

Aside: Swatch means that the changes didn't save even after that word was edited =( Once upon a time I realized I should have used the word "watch" instead of "peak" in a phrase that becomes significant in the second half of the story, so I had the document replace "peak" with "watch" and didn't realize it would do it in the MIDDLE of words too. So speak became Swatch and I can't get rid of it. Grrrr. Maybe it'll catch on as slang, lol